Dating a BDL and John Lacy's book

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pdalton
Posts: 1
Joined: Thu Apr 30, 2020 7:17 pm

Dating a BDL and John Lacy's book

Post by pdalton »

I've owned my 700 BDL-LH .30-06 since sometime in the 1970s or early 1980s, but I can't remember precisely when I bought it. Not surprisingly, the selling gun store went out of business many years back. So I've been trying to "date" it and recently found this site. By using the really excellent information (illustrations and codes) found here, I now think it was made in October, 1972.

However, I'm not 100% sure about that because the stamping on the left side of the barrel is not terribly clear.

I've included a photo of that portion of the left side of the barrel in the hope that someone on this forum with experience interpreting these stampings can either confirm what I think it means or provide a more correct interpretation.
20200129_152521.jpg
20200129_152521.jpg (1.61 MiB) Viewed 1135 times

Based on the illustration posted here, I believe the first stamp is the Final Inspection mark. The second appears to me to be a slightly askew "E" (which I believe corresponds to "October"). The third is more difficult for me, but I think it may be a lowercase "w" (which I'm guessing corresponds to 1972, though the chart shows it as an uppercase "W"). The last two characters stamped are "90" and -- from the illustration I found here -- I assume they identify the "Assembly" (although the illustration shows only a single character for this).

Is my interpretation correct and, if not, can someone please decipher the correct interpretation for me?

Also . . . while I was looking around on this site, I saw a reference to a book about the Remington 700 by John F. Lacy. It sounded very interesting, so I followed the link to try to find a copy to read. The link went to Amazon, where the referenced prices ranged from $375.00 to over $700.00! Apparently, it has become a collectors item! Great, but prices like that are well beyond my means! While (unsuccessfully) looking for copies at more reasonable prices, I came across a forum post (I can't remember the specific site offhand) where the poster mentioned he had communicated with Mr. Lacy and been told there would be a reprint of the book in late 2018. I searched for, but could not locate, any other references to such a reprint of the book.

Does anyone here happen to know whether there has been -- or will be -- a reprint of Mr. Lacy's book and/or where or how I might be able to obtain a copy just to be able to read it?

Thanks very much,
Paul
600RemGuy
Posts: 353
Joined: Sat Mar 25, 2006 10:29 pm
Location: Ontario, Canada

Re: Dating a BDL and John Lacy's book

Post by 600RemGuy »

There has been no re-print of John Lacy's book. Add a search on ebay and hope to catch one early.

As for your rifle, I believe you have deciphered the information correctly. Your serial number will start between 666 and 669
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